Schizophrenia is a simple example of how using one's own thoughts to validate one's own existence is faulty. I'm pretty sure that the annals of history can throw up various examples of people hallucinating that they were someone or something else. According to what you've written, it cannot be doubted from THEIR point of view. it is only doubtable from a third person view. Can you see the circular logic?
Didnt you just say that even if your a figment of Gods imagination your real? So in other words if your a figment of Gods imagination thats a dream or a halluciantion, I think you missed the point entirely.
For all you know reality itself could be a dream as well.
__________________ Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
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Last edited by Deadline on Nov 8th, 2007 at 04:13 PM
"I think, therefore I am", as I have said, requires base assumptions which were not proved by Descartes, and which you have not addressed either. The first is the presumption that activity without an agent is possible, and that introspection holds no distinct object to serve as the abse for Cartesian self-awareness.
I didn't really want to drag this into a philosophy argument, so let me just point out the flaws in simply saying that one must exist because one thinks. I have already listed one assumption, but let me list a few more, many of which were not disputed by supporters of the cogito:
1) That it is I who thinks.
2) That there must be something that thinks
3) That thinking is an activity and an operation on the part of a being that it assumed to be a cause.
4) That there is an "ego"
5) That it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking - that one knows what thinking is.
I need not dispute any of those. It doesn't matter whether it is 'I' who thinks - even if my 'thoughts' were something else thinking in my stead, I'd still exist transitively. Similarly can be said for your other objections.
Because they cannot be absolutely disputed, just like the subjectivity of good and evil. The very notions of "I" and "thinking" are hazy at best, and to claim that you understand what they are completely laughs in the face of reasoned philosophy.
Unlike yourself, the objections that I raised do not absolutely make a statement, but rather qualitatively question the assumptions that your absolute statement was based on. A subtle difference, but one which is devastatingly large.
Last edited by Ouallada on Nov 8th, 2007 at 07:04 PM
I apologise if I came across as a little curt in the last couple of posts. It wasn't meant to be that way. The issue we had at hand was whether or not "I think, therefore I am" is absolutely correct. Whether or not there actually is any form of existence is not consequential, as only a first person existence is proved by the cogito. The word "I" itself is vague, and forced into the cogito. The word "think" is even worse. To think about what thinking means and to use whatever rationale is drawn to validate what thinking is really amounts to absolutely nothing, because if you do not know what thinking is, you cannot think, and if you cannot think, you cannot reason what thinking is.
In a nutshell, from a layman's view, I would agree with you whole-heartedly. From a philosophical point of view, the cogito still stands as a pillar of western philosophy, albeit a flawed one.
Passing interest, unfortunately. Philosophy is a nice thing to banter about when drunk, but doesn't make for good studying. A fair bit of it does spillover to everyday life, so I guess everyone should at least be acquainted with such discourse.
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Nov 7th, 2007 10:34 PM
